Once We Made A Mistake
by TheWestDriver
Summary: She had never understood the young court girls and their obsession with the opposite sex. NasuadaArya femslash.


A/N: Here's a saucy little one-shot for you, my dear reader. I'm not really sure where this came from, and it doesn't really have a conclusive end, but I liked writing it a great deal. Nasuada/Arya has been severely neglected, and for a crack pairing, it's pretty amazing.

Review review review and I will write write write. :

Disclaimer: Paolini owns everything _Inheritance._ My version would be exclusively slash. Yum.

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Nasuada wishes she had paid more attention during her articulation and discourse lessons. She regrets never having a witty retort for her advisors when they insist that she spends her evening dining with Orrin. (It is always the King they suggest.)

She becomes brittle with anger and she mumbles something incoherent before stalking to her private tent.

Nasuada would like to quickly reply with something like, "One mustn't be hasty in the ways of matchmaking" or, "Perhaps the King has another lady to attend this evening, have you not considered his wishes?" But all she thinks is "go to hell" so she keeps her mouth shut.

Tomorrow the game will start again, and Nasuada knows her advisors are always up to playing. She wonders how many weeks she can last before she explodes in their wrinkled faces.

On many afternoons Arya meets her for a brief discussion, and her presence lingers long after the elf leaves. Nasuada feels a bit empty in her red tent, breathing in the scented candles that her handmaids persistently light. She would rather be under the stars, half-dreaming and half-awake like Arya and the other elves in the nighttime.

And, lest she forget, like Eragon. He is more (or less) than human now, too.

Nasuada finds her girlish fancies return in the darkness, reminding her of months ago in Tronjheim. When the world was a pretty place and she was elusive and exotic and young.

Then the leader of the Varden died in the tunnels. He died in the arms of a boy-hero he hardly knew while his daughter was away.

Ajihad's funeral left Nasuada a husk of a human being, hardly fit to exist (much less to lead.) She crumpled after the ceremonies and meetings, and found that she was very weak when left to her own devices.

The floor of her room was tiled then, full of the gleaming marble reflections of which the dwarves were so fond. Her tears pooled there, polishing the surface even more. (The black robes and laced veil remained on her body, for she allowed none of her servants to follow her inside.) Her shaking hands clawed at the back of the formal attire, ripping the stitches, and she suppressed a little scream. (The guards would come running, she knew.) She was cutting up her shoulders with her fingernails.

Her breath was labored, choking, and she was afraid she might vomit. (Unprofessional. Undignified. Ajihad would never.) The little gasps slipped out until Nasuada grew lightheaded.

She heard her locked door click open, and her first thought was that she was under attack. But the door cracked only slightly, and pale, slim fingers wrapped around the edge. (Arya said nothing.) The elf stared at her for just a second.

Nasuada matched her glance. Crying, bleeding, and disgusting on the floor, Nasuada stared back. (Look at me, she said. I am not fit.) There was a long silence.

Then, in two long strides, Arya had covered the distance between them. With inhuman ease, she lifted the girl onto her lap, seating herself on the cold ground. Her hands roamed- brushing Nasuada's hair, relaxing her fists, stroking her neck- but still she said nothing, and the newly orphaned Nasuada found that the quiet was the most overwhelming part of her contact. She wept again for her father, clinging and sickly and too close.

It was then that Arya did something she should never have done.

Her lips pressed to Nasuada's cheekbones, leaving a ghostly tingle on her teary face. (It was simply too much.) And the human turned, reveling in the friction between them, and kissed her back with fervor. Her tongue was warm and sweet when she finally opened her mouth, and Arya let her sorrow show.

Nasuada had never felt the flurries of romance before. Her body (_oh,_ _gods, her body_) was suddenly awake, like the princess rising from her magical death at the kiss of a prince. Like a fairy tale. She had never understood the young court girls and their obsession with the opposite sex.

(You are above that, Nasuada was told.) She was too mature to chase after boys. But kissing Arya made her sorry she ever mocked her old playmates. They were quite right about one part of love.

Fumbling, Nasuada could practically feel herself making mistakes as she kissed. Moving too fast, too slow, too eager. (Idiot virgin, she cursed.) And Arya was being so patient. It was almost enough to think that the elf enjoyed it, too. For Nasuada, it was almost enough to forget her dead father.

They stopped kissing when Arya untied the knots in the back of Nasuada's dress. (Oh, what will the people say?) Nasuada pressed to her harder, close enough to feel her breathe, and Arya held her just as firmly. She writhed awkwardly (she wanted it) but Arya steadied her cheek with her free hand. One long, innocent kiss ended their non-verbal discussion (the elf was detached again) so that she could pull the dress away more easily.

Nasuada was in her undergarments, and felt like she should be ashamed, but wasn't.

She was just sad again. (This time she felt for Arya, who was leaving.) The elf understood what it was like have no father and no (real) mother and a mission to accomplish. Arya knew about pain (torture, lies, poison) and how to cope with the gaping insecurity of loneliness.

Nasuada wanted her to stay, but she said nothing, so Arya left in a reciprocal silence.

Rolling beneath her blankets, the Varden leader gives up on trying to control her memories. Nasuada is too tired to keep them at bay, to ignore the one time another person had shown her love. (It was only once, so it must not have mattered.)

She decides to stop acting like a teenager, and review her memories with logic (like Arya) and a cold eye (also like Arya, except for that once.)

Nasuada's first proper kiss had been wrong in every way. There was no good judgment to be found after her father's funeral; she desecrated her own day of mourning. Likewise, age alone would have stopped a normal person from her actions, but Nasuada neglected the decades of practice that the elf had acquired, showcasing her own inexperience. She had forced herself to pretend that Arya had no lovers- that they were learning together. (Arya's kisses were far to good for that to be true.)

Nasuada had not kissed a boy of good moral standing, wholesome in the eyes of her people, but an elf, a mysterious creature of the forests. And for that matter, she had not even kissed a boy. She had kissed Arya until their lips were swollen and part of her dress had come undone and they were lying together on the floor next to her comfortable bed.

It isn't until later that she thinks about how wholly inappropriate it was.

(It only happened once because it was a mistake.)

Yet, if this is true, Nasuada cannot explain why she is lying awake at night, waiting for it to happen again.

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